#therosecrest

[magioftheseas]

We haven't spoken before, so pardon me for butting in, but I wondered where you were at with GRANBELM? It's rare to see anyone mention it.

Oh, I finished it a while back! And I do think that like Granbelm is very interesting! The NGE/Madoka vibes were pretty strong but I think Granbelm really comes into its own in its second half in particular.

Like, I do really love Mangetsu as a protagonist to begin with, and even the twist while admittedly weird was still interestingly done. It's a shame that the only explicitly gay shit is Predatory Lesbian Suisou though, but at least she is also an interesting character in her own right. Still, yeah, not cool. In general, I like stories that grapple with themes of existential dread, memories, and the turmoil of emotional intimacy, and Granbelm delivers pretty well on that front. Mostly.

My biggest issue besides the, uh, Predatory Lesbian shit being Iffy, is that like... Anna just...sucks, I'm sorry. She's so obnoxious in that most of her lines are fucking screaming and they do extremely little to effectively convey the shift from when she was a sweet kid to...whatever the fuck we're dealing with now. She's sympathetic on paper, I guess, but that is some just plain BAD execution. She's exaggerated to a cartoonish degree and it decimates my ability to latch onto the tragic, strenuous relationship she has with Shingestu.

But yeah, her and some issues with Suisou aside, I think Granbelm is really good. Definitely an underrated gem. It's not quite at Madoka or NGE level, but jesus have you actually seen other entries in this genre because like good god. Granbelm may not be perfect, but at least I'd still call it good.

I'd give it, like, an 8/10 overall. (The first half is more 6/10 tho.)

I'm pretty happy I watched it!

[pdaliceliveblogs]

That’s a mood, friend. Usually I get bogged down starting things, rather than in the middle but see figure a: this delay, and figure b: the fact that I’m two episodes from the s6 finale of Adventure Time and haven’t picked it back up in months.

Symphogear is on the list! There isn’t a poll yet, but there will be in probably about a week; I’ve just been asking for suggestions so far.

I love this ask. I love you. Let’s do this.

Maya and Claudine as Hades and Persephone respectively is god-tier (ha ha), I’m all for that. Maya’s voice could take on Hades really well; despite the role being written for a bass there have been some great soprano covers (not least Anaïs herself singing Why We Build the Wall on her album Xoa. Actually, the first time I heard that song, she was singing it on the radio to promote the concept album.) And I’d love for Claudine to get the limelight as Persephone; that’s a meaty role and she’d be fantastic at it.

Karen as Orpheus is... interesting. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I mean, she definitely has a similar sweet and optimistic nature; I think it’s a great fit for character. My issue with it is voice. Karen’s voice is charming, but it also has a definite childlike stylization that suits her but isn’t to my personal tastes. Orpheus, as the son of a muse, is supposed to have that godly perfection in his voice, to such a degree that even Reeve Carney (Broadway Orpheus), who is a fantastic singer, didn’t quite hit that mark for me even though he was really wonderful in the role. I love how it’s done on the concept album, with Justin Vernon semi-subtly multitracked to give him an ethereal sound, but obviously that’s not a go for live theatre.

So we could go the Carney route and have Karen as Orpheus, emphasizing personality and openness over muse-level singing, or we could put Junna or Nana in the role of Orpheus, both of whom have voices that really work for me.

Despite the fact that Nana has a more obvious (though fake) cute optimist exterior, I think I’d rather have her as Eurydice and Junna as Orpheus. The depth of loneliness and despair in Nana means, I think, that she’d have plenty to draw from for Eurydice’s desperation, and I can see her really doing a fantastic job. Junna, then, gets to be the charmingly earnest Tenor Boy role, and she could dip Nana at some point during Come Home With Me and it would be great.

Just for ‘they’re a trio now’ reasons, I’d say Karen, Mahiru, and Hikari as the Fates, and then maybe Futaba as Hermes because she has a great ferocity to her and also a teeny weeny Hermes would be adorable. And then I have filled up all the main roles and there’s nowhere for Kaoruko. Whoops. Maybe she alternates nights as Hermes? Or maybe they write in a random solo for her as a sad once-noble spirit in Hadestown who was reduced to working on the wall when her family’s lands all died in the harsh winters, because takarazuka does things like that sometimes.

Thank you for this ask I have genuinely been thinking about it on and off for weeks.

[scope-dogg]

Have you heard about Back Arrow? A new mecha anime scheduled for January. The Mecha designs are slighly dubious, but I for one am excited to see it.

Saw someone post the new poster with the new mecha on it earlier, and just watched the trailer and looked up some info. Looks promising. Goro Taniguchi’s most famous for Code Geass (which I haven’t actually seen yet) but to me he’s more notable for directing Gun X Sword, which is one of my all-time favourites. By and large I like mecha shows with fantasy-esque settings, I like the talent working on it and the production values seem solid, so yeah, should be decent at least. The main mecha design’s alright in my eyes.

I’m not the biggest fan of the Turn-X style legs on this thing but everything above the beltline looks good imo. Like someone put Dann of Thursday and Tekkaman Blade in the blender and added a spruce of Layzner’s cockpit to the mix.

Not a fan of this thing though.

There’s good ways to do outwardly feminine mecha designs and bad ways. This is one of the bad ways.

[mesaprotector]

therosecrest

I'm not familiar with Umineko, however I love GRANBELM. If you don't mind, could you please elaborate in regards to this?

I’ll try! spoilers for Granbelm EP1-11 below (in case anyone else is reading this)

Basically it’s how Mangetsu finds out her whole life story is a lie, i.e. her family isn’t her family and so on but she comes to terms with it by realizing all the things she loves and appreciates about living in this world (this scene). and with that, she loves Shingetsu too for being the reason she was able to experience all of that in the first place.

I saw this and realized that for me, love for one’s creator is inextricable from love of being alive and everything that comes with it. which is something so obvious to me now but I guess I never really felt it until I saw that episode a second time. You could interpret creator as your parents but Mangetsu’s circumstances feel so specific that I connected it to my own feelings towards God. I basically wasn’t raised religious at all, and I certainly don’t believe I’d go to hell if I said a prayer wrong or whatever, but I try to practice something because it’s a way of reminding myself every day that I do love being alive, no matter how hard it is, even though I’ve been low-key suicidal at times in the past.

[empty-movement]

Do you know if the Utena Blu-rays will be okay to watch in the UK? Blu-rays normally are region free, right? I ask because I never did find the DVDs in this region code.

I put this question to our friends at Nozomi, and this is the answer I got from them:

The Blu-rays will be Region A. Unfortunately, due to the way that licensing agreements are, we’re only allowed to release the discs for Region A (presumably, licensing rights for the UK are being made available to a UK distributor). A region-free Blu-ray player would probably work. I would also recommend that fans in the UK write their local anime licensors (Anime Limited UK springs to mind, we’ve worked with them in the past) and request that they license and release Utena in the UK. 

So it’s not the news you were hoping for, but at least now you know where you’re starting from and who to contact to ask about a UK version.

[pdaliceliveblogs]

Thank you, I genuinely really appreciate that. Unfortunately, I’ve wasted enough of my life not progressing because I felt wretched that that’s always going to be a hard sell haha.

I’m grateful for y’all’s generosity in dealing with my schedule slip.

Let’s watch some Revue.

[pdaliceliveblogs]

Oh, I was well aware. Even if he’d read them, though, I really don’t think he’d have stopped.

I did notice her lips, but it seems to me that characters gain lipstick in dramatic scenes a lot; I’ve noticed it happening in the duelling arena a few times now. Maybe it’s just because I’m so much older than these characters, but I was being painfully aware of how young she is in that scene.

Yeah, no wonder people were preemptively warning me not to skip the recap episodes when the first one was coming up! And... there’s a point at which I don’t know if I can separate out comphet from genuine attraction, even for a fictional character (of course I wouldn’t try to do that for a real person; that’s their business.) Whether she’s attracted to him or not he’s fully taking advantage of her, and she’s telling herself she wants to be there to avoid processing what’s happening. It’s harrowing.

I can absolutely see that. It is genuinely gratifying to see horror framed as horror, as opposed to the kind of sly “we’re so edgy/sexy” thing that a lot of modern television does-- I know it’s a cliche example at this point, but when my parents were watching Game of Thrones I had to leave the room and put in earplugs because of how unsettlingly voyeuristic even scenes of rape and murder felt.

I’m so sorry you’ve been through something like this, and I hope you’re doing well.

(Neither I nor my screener can figure out which anonymous ask this goes to, but either way you’re fine don’t worry)

Oof, I’m sorry. I’m so glad I have time to clean my mind out a bit before I have to sleep. I have more than enough nightmares already, honestly....

I can see why-- the candelabra feels like a countdown; it’s inexorably progressing towards this, and Anthy is stuck in it, forced to be complicit. It’s horrifying. I am watching the sub, yes! And I had a pretty similar visceral reaction to it as you’ve described there, though my Japanese isn’t great. Utena’s VA is really good, though, and did an amazing job at making that whole scene bone-chillingly wrong. I look forward to where this all goes-- even just from the title I know the next episode will be a big one.

[pdaliceliveblogs]

Thank you. We’re doing pretty okay; mum’s helping write the obit which I think is good for her. I really appreciate how kind everybody’s been.

Neat! I’ll check them out after I’ve finished, thanks~

lmao nice

I mean, I’ve definitely misread subs before... *coughareyouinlovewithGarnetcough*

Absolutely. It’s a totally dishonourable move.

Exactly! He’s a genuinely detestable person in a very real way, deflecting all blame for his actions onto those around him-- and especially the women around him.

Oof, yeah, that makes sense with... his kind of logic. He is very much the corrupter-- Lucifer, as we’ve already noted-- so of course he plays on her worst fears, the things she doesn’t like about herself, every weakness he can find. And that makes it all the more powerful that she was able to pull herself out of his sway and fight, and all the more of a gut punch when... what happened... happened.

God, I can’t even say it.

Yes! It’s the intimacy of their discussions in bed but turned up to eleven; there, there were still things Anthy couldn’t say, but here all their searching comes out. They breach the gap and hold each other, physically and emotionally.

...and like with the last answer, the end of that episode makes it all kind of hang in the air... we’ll see what happens with it shortly.